A Message to All My Haters

I have a super important message for you today. But first, before I share that with you, I need to tell you, the last three weeks have been crazy.

I have been in Los Angeles having meetings about my TV show, and I can’t wait to publicly be able to talk about that. My podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network hosted by iHeart radio was released. I hosted my own event. And now I’m at the Black Effect Podcast Network Festival.

Now, I’m telling all of that because I was flying out here today to Atlanta and I was thinking about my journey as a psychotherapist and how I got here, and often tell people, “I’m so grateful for everything. I’m grateful for it all. The good, the bad, the hard, the easy. I’m grateful for it all.”

And the reason I say that, I remember back, it was probably like 2016, 2017, I was starting to grow in my profession, building a following, writing books, giving lectures all over the world. And then I heard there were some people in the field that weren’t happy that I was developing such a loud voice in our field.

And they actually hosted a meeting on how to stop Elliott from having a loud voice in this field. They literally flew people to a city in Europe and had a two day meeting about how to cultivate other leaders so that Elliott is not the loudest voice in our field. And when I heard that I was hurt, I was devastated, but I was also motivated.

It drove me to work as hard as I could possibly work to continue to do the work I do and I love. It drove me to continue to share my thoughts and ideas. It drove me to continue to try to earn the things that I could earn. To get everything I had coming to me based on the work I was doing. It drove me.

So my message today is, I’m truly completely grateful for it all, because I wouldn’t be here without the people who loved and supported me, but also without the people that were hating on me and trying as hard as they could to stop my growth in this field, ’cause it motivated and drove me more than I ever could have had myself.

Another thing that happened over these past couple of weeks that was really, really massive to me was, I’m in a rap video and the rapper just released a trailer to that video at the time I’m recording this, and the whole video’s coming out in the next couple of days. Now why that’s so important to me is because the hip hop community has been largely ignored. So as a consequence, the black community doesn’t take mental health very seriously.

So this rapper made a song called, “Yes, I’m Sad.” His name is Fredo Bang. And he wanted to record a conversation about his mental health and he chose me to do it. We are getting to bring Solution Focused Brief Therapy into spaces and communities where it previously has not existed.

And I think the people in the solution focused field historically, when they say they love Solution Focused Brief Therapy, I actually don’t believe them. ’cause if they did love it, then they would celebrate that It’s being brought into different communities. It’s being brought into different spaces. What I actually think they love is just their ability to do work. And they experience my growth as a threat to their ability to do work.

But I’m here just to spread this to more people and to expose people to healing. And especially people who have not had access to healing before. And I would not be here if those people didn’t put obstacles in front of me, if I didn’t have to find a way over those obstacles. They literally made me stronger. They made me more focused, they made me more resilient. They made me believe in myself and my mission even more.

And for that, I’m completely grateful because now I stand here and I’m making a massive impact in the clinical world and the community itself, because more people getting exposed to what this is and more people getting exposed to this approach. And I love that. To me, that is the single most important thing that I could ever do. That is the single most important work I could ever do. It means the absolute world to me.

So I wanna say thank you. Thank you for my supporters, thank you for the people that tried to stop me. Just grateful overall.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You all mean the world to me.

And we’re gonna keep growing and scaling and bringing this work to more and more and more people. And I’m excited for this. I’m excited to see how the world responds to Solution Focused Brief Therapy. I have a brand new podcast called Family Therapy where I’m demonstrating Solution Focused Brief Therapy with people and watching how they respond to it. It’s never been viewed like this before. Solution Focused work has never been viewed this way before.

Please go support that podcast. You can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts. Apple, iHeart, Spotify, wherever. Just do a search for Elliott Connie or Family Therapy Podcast hosted by the Black Effect. And you’re gonna see what I’m talking about and you’re gonna see how important this work is.

So thank you so very much. I love all of you. The ones who didn’t even realize they were making me stronger, and the ones who loved on me and were building me up.

You guys mean the world to me. So keep supporting my work and I’m gonna keep showing up for you.